Tara Brach - Meditation - Getting Lost and Coming Back Here (2017-03-08)

Episode Date: March 9, 2017

Meditation: Getting Lost and Coming Back Here (2017-03-08) - This meditation establishes a sense of presence, of being Here, through a body scan and awakening the senses. We then notice when we're lost and relax back into the wakeful stillness - the Hereness - that is our true home. Our practice concludes with the beautiful poem "Lost" by David Wagoner. Free download of Tara's 10 min meditation: "Mindful Breathing: Finding Calm and Ease" when you join her email list.

The following meditation is led by Tara Brock. To access more of my meditations or join my email list, please visit tarabrock.com. In the stillness to feel your body breathing and bringing a gentle attention to the area of the heart. To ask yourself, what is it that really brings me to practice right now? What matters to me?

And what is it this heart longs for? See, if you can listen, in to where you feel most sincere about your intention for being here, inviting your attention right here, making yourself at home in the moment. You can deepen that presence with a gentle scan through the body using the image of a smile which really helps the whole nervous system to relax, fight, flight, freeze, to sense a quality of benign presence. You might sense a smile spreading through the eyes.

Let the outside corners of the eyes be lifted slightly and see if there's a softening of the flesh around the eyes. A slight smile at the mouth. Let the inside of the mouth smile a bit. You might sense if you can relax the tongue right down to the root of the tongue. to let the tongue kind of fill the lower palate and be aware of the sensations

to fill the whole region of the mouth. Eyes are smiling, soft, the mouth. You can visualize and feel the sense of a smile through the throat, kind of a curve, receptivity that allows there to be a bit more openness and flow and visualizing and sensing the filter,

experience of a smile spreading through the chest and the heart area, not to cover over but to make room for what's here. Sensing a widening space of openness and flow so that the shoulders can gently relax away from the ears, relax back and down a bit. Feeling from the inside out, just sensing the aliveness inside the shoulders. See if it's possible. to soften and let go a bit. Ice to water and water to gas. Now the hands to rest in a very easy and effortless way and softening the hands, noticing what you can feel from the inside out as you again soften the hands. The eyes are smiling, soft, slight smile at the mouth, the throat, visualizing and feeling that.

smile and smiling into the chest and the heart area, sensing an openness there. And you might visualize and feel a sense of a smile spreading through the belly, letting this next breath be received in a softening belly, this breath and now this one and again, feeling the aliveness inside the belly, peeling this body sitting here breathing, eyes are smiling, the mouth and the belly. You might visualize and sense that felt experience of a smile spreading through the pelvic region,

noticing the aliveness of sensation there, open and flowing, the volume of the legs, feeling the feet, the sense of pressure and warmth where they contact the floor. And then from the inside out, the aliveness, the movement of sense,

sensation, hands are soft. This whole body's breathing and as you widen the attention you can feel this body as a field of sensation. It's a changing dance of sensation. Pulsing and tingling, heat and cool, tightness and flow. It's letting everything happen, including in this dance of aliveness the play of sound. sounds and the space around you, the silence between sounds, relaxing back into that awareness that's receiving this change in dance of sound and sensation,

feelings and aliveness. The air of the stillness is including and conscious of this whole play of aliveness, that alert inner stillness, sensing this presence, this stillness, as home. Natural that the mind will drift off into the virtual movie that incessant dialogue

and the narrative, the commentary, future, the past. Not to judge, but rather when you notice that, you can just note it, okay, the thinking, movie of the mind. And come back to what's right here, to this heerness.

You might even mentally whisper here, receiving it with that smile of receptivity, with kindness and presence. Again, finding your way home to that stillness, that alert inner stillness that's aware of this whole changing dance. Ask yourself, am I lost in thought, lost in reactivity? if you notice that the mind has drifted. Let this be a moment of stepping out of the thoughts, relaxing back into this heerness. What's right here being the silence that's listening to sound. Just listen.

Being that stillness that's aware of the changing dance of sensation, back into this heerness, this refuge of presence. This poem is called Lost and it's written by David Wagoner. Stand still. The trees ahead and the bushes beside you are not lost. Wherever you are is called here and you must treat it as a powerful stranger. Must ask permission to know it and be known.

The forest breathes. Listen. It answers, I have made this place around you. If you leave it, you may come back again, saying, Here. No two trees are the same to raven. No two branches are the same to wren. If what a tree or bush does is lost on you,

you are truly lost. Stand still. The forest knows where you are. You must let it find you.